Loaded-tires-air pressure?

[btolle]

With the valve stem at 12 O'clock, use a small screwdriver and let the liquid out until you are getting just air then air the tire back up until it "looks" right and see how much is in it. Just be sure not to go over the maximum stated on the sidewall.

My tires and the owners manual says 40# in rear and 35# in front and at that pressure it will beat me to death. I run about 20 in the rear and 25 in the front and it does fine.

It is hard to tell what the tires are filled with, but if it is calcium chloride you need to wash any off that gets on the rim when you let some out. Calcium chloride (chloride is a salt I believe) is corrosive and if left on the outside of the rim will cause corrosion.

Look at some of the liquid and if it is milky white looking you may have calcium chloride in the tires.

If it is green or pink and has an anti freeze smell then they put antifreeze and water which is what I used.

If it appears to be pure water then you need to dump enough out to replace it with antifreeze or something to keep the water from freezing.

Check the color and odor and report back to us!

Bill Tolle

 

[Bird]

A neighbor bought an 85hp Oliver, believed to be 25 years old at the time with 5,000 hours on the clock and it would do 18 mph, if its speedometer was right. He and I had both been driving it on paved roads to hay fields, cutting and baling hay with it, and neither of us had any idea the tires had liquid it them until he ran over something brush hogging the borrow ditch with it and punched a pencil sized hole in one tire. It was calcium chloride (that's what he got for buying a used tractor from Minnesota /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif). I don't know to what level they were filled, but he was only about a hundred yards down the road from my place when he saw the liquid running out in a solid stream so he ran it up to the door of my shop building and stopped with the leak at about the 2 o'clock position and it was running a solid stream out. And the grass it killed didn't come back for 2 years. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[willfick]

Calcium chloride is pretty nasty. Toxic and corrosive. I don't think the little bit of extra weight is worth the risk. I put four gallons of low-tox antifreeze in each of mine before filling them the rest of the way with water. That's plenty of freeze protection for the sunny South.
Wm

 

[Syncro]

<font color="blue"> "With the valve stem at 12 O'clock, use a small screwdriver and let the liquid out until you are getting just air then air the tire back up until it "looks" right and see how much is in it." </font>

Right. Thats what I meant to say it in my prior post. I initially filled my tires one gal short of the Ballast Star specs and had antifreeze (WW fluid) come out of the valve at 12 o'clock, that is until I pressured up the tires then just air. So that tells me that the amount speced was probably correct and just below the valve stem with a slight sag causing the overflow at zero air pressure.

 

[whammes]

Another reason for maintaining the tire ballast around 75% if you're using calcium chloride is to avoid having the tire rim come into contact with air inside the tire. Apparently that causes the corrosion to be able to occur, at least in tubeless tires.

 

[rozett]

I just thought I would add what is in my Cub 7360SS manual, since it is a little different than the replies thus far....

<font color="brown">For tires equipped with liquid ballast, check the air pressure as follows:
1. Use an air-water gauge. The valve must be at the bottom of the tire to get an accurate reading.

2. Use a standard air gauge as follows:
A. The valve must be at the top of the tire.
B. Measure the rim diameter.
C. Add 1/2 PSI for each 12 inches of rim diameter to the standard gauge reading. </font>